Magic: The Gathering C/D

you'd have to have all one creature type (which I don't think any decks do right now)

human tribal and zombie tribal are both very good decks in standard already. i think people are also worried about uncounterable primeval titans, since the main thing keeping that card in check was mana leak

you have to figure out a way to use him. if you can put +1/+1 counters on him he loses his downside. or you can bounce him, or...I dunno. it's not a great card, I just love the design of it.

cider - Human tribals play Geists, and Zombie tribals have Phantasmal Image and Phyrexian Obliterator. In both cases I think you'd want the duals that are out already (which are excellent already). Also, many ways to beat titans besides Mana Leak (Phantasmal Image works quite well too)

yeah i was thinking of ways to add that land to boros humans but the mana gets tricky esp if yr trying to use the new W/R utility land as well? im sure itll be useful but i wonder if itll be as powerful as some ppl are predicting, i guess.

i think i may be able to play the prerelease tho so im excited again lol

yeah some spanish site spoiled a shitload of the common/uncommon limited fodder yesterday so i'm getting all excited for drafting this now and trying to find the cool synergies etc. so far all my favorite limited cards are in blue it seems

I can't figure out if soulbound is going to be tons of fun or if it's just going to make for incredibly complex board states. Say your opponent's got four creatures out, three with soulbound, and you're trying to figure out how to block...yikes

full spoiler is up on the main site. set looks pretty good for limited, at first glance the power level of the commons/uncommons seems really low for a modern set but i'm sure some of them will play stronger than they look. removal looks worse than innistrad's, which was already pretty bad, so that makes me think the format's going to be all about combat tricks with the soulbound guys, and trying to blow out your opponent in combat without getting blown out yourself.

i'll wait to pass judgement until the prerelease, but right now my feeling is that drafting decks that abuse soulbound as well as the blue/white Flickering ability are going to work well. and for that, I feel like Black will be very underdrafted.

oh, i hated in NYC that there was no good place to game. Jim Henley's was blah, and all the other gaming/collectibles places were way too small to do anything (like Forbidden Planet, that other place in midtown, Midtown Comics, etc).

okay, i can't find my decks where i thought they were. gonna continue looking. might be at work, in which case i will stop over there later. i cld swear i moved them from my last apt directly to here tho, so i am gonna keep digging in the closets.

this is why i should have made sure to find them after last time i couldn't find them before the day of the eventi am a big procrastinator/lazy.BUT i do feel in my gut that they are here somewhere, and the closet is very overfull.

i wasn't trying to insinuate anything! i just mean that you know, any neighborhood is gonna have its own particularities re: travel to other boroughs or neighborhoods, but that's no reason not to take a book on the train for 45 minutes imo.

also, iatee, i think i may have to bail on u tonight. i cannot find my cards anywhere & it is making me crazy. gonna keep looking and will let u know if i succeed. if NOT, i will 100% absolutely make sure to have found them by next week.

the real question i have, is: what is the possbility I accidentally threw them away while moving? idk. i DID find part of a "rebel" deck in a tote bag though, so that gives me hope. also wonder where my binder with raers is

Anyone play in this thing? I did and went 2-2; suspected I got a pretty crappy card pool, as I didn't have any playable rares nor any of the real swingy uncommons that dominated me in the matches I lost. That's the impression I got from this set - lots of haymakers, possibly more degenerate things than I've ever seen in limited, and a surprisingly small amount of removal (believe it or not, blue seems like it'll have the easiest time dealing with creatures this time around)

It looks like Gx Soulbound, W/U flickering, and W/R aggro are all going to be the top limited decks, though Black has some very good aggro cards as well (and you can play Angels if you get the right stuff). IMO this set is pretty terrible for Sealed (as you will likely wind up with 15-16 cards towards all those decks and really have to stretch if you don't get the right card pool), but draft should be really fun.

yeah i went 4-1 with a U/R tempo deck that had good commons/uncommons but no 'haymakers', so i think i had the opposite impression of the set. Except for the one match I lost to Dark Impostor (had no way to deal with a card that wins the game outside of combat) I felt pretty invincible, since I think about 90% of the room completely misjudged the format as slow when it's actually very fast.

i played on sat. i was up 3-1 but i badly misplayed during my final match to finish 3-2. i had 4-5 really solid cards in each color but also lots of total jank so i had a hard time putting together a really solid deck, i ended up going W/R/u humans splashing blue for ghostly flicker, bruna and the 1U unblockable spell. flicker effects and all the excellent etb red cards is really powerful and i probably shouldve gone 3-0 with that deck. my first attempt was with W/U control ft. bruna, a bunch of enchantments and some really good UU cards but i just didnt have enough creatures/removal to make it work and switched after going 1-1.

idk i thought this was a really fun sealed environment - might try to play the actual release next sunday.

well Soulbond is by nature a very swingy mechanic. since my deck had virtually no removal (as I opened almost none) some of the green ones would just destroy me, especially the +4/+4 one which essentially added 12 extra power for five mana. in general I think this set is designed to do very powerful things in Limited. the flickering + 2/2 flying bounce guy gets out of hand quick (the four mana "bounce two creatures" sorcery is also insanely good), and R/W can deal a ton of damage quick as a big % of those commons and uncommons are designed to be played together. add to this the miracles and abundance of huge flying Angels and things get a bit unhinged.

just did my first AVN draft yesterday, as expected it was really fun, and maybe the most complex draft format yet.

first pick was Vexing Devil (which I thought kind of sucked in draft, but it's worth $15 so I'm not passing it) and was able to go mono-red. dunno how much detail I want to go into here but it really feels like there is so much synergy with the Red humans here. Thatcher Revolt is the deck's bread and butter - kind of terrible on its own, but it interacts with SO MUCH in this set. I managed a turn 4 kill with two of them, which I've never done in a draft before.

drafting a fast deck seems like a good strategy - flicker is slow and soulbound is very susceptible to removal. put a premium on 1 and 2 drops (trust me. there aren't many).

okay, here's another observation - this is one of the most removal-lite draft sets I've ever seen. very little "straight" removal at common. I sorted by commons and found everything that can deal with a creature - it's not pretty

White:Defang - kinda crappy, essentially just reduces a creature's power to 0, but doesn't stop any abilities and can be flickered awayRighteous Blow - great card, but it only does 2 damage

Blue:Mist Raven - great card but it only bouncesCrippling Chill - only stalls a creature for a turnPeel from Reality - more bounce, kinda have to build around cards like thisSpectral Prison - this one actually seems okay, but would need to be sided out a lot

Black:Bone Splinters - this is the ONLY common that actually says "destroy target creature" on it, so it's very good, even if it's card disadvantageDeath Wind - can kill anything, but you almost always pay more for it than the creature you're destroyingGhoulflesh - sideboard at bestUndead Executioner - pseudo-removal, definitely good but -2/-2 doesn't take care of the good soulbounders, plus it takes some work

Red:Guise of Fire - sideboard at bestPillar of Flame - good, but only works on small guysThunderbolt - only kills flyers

Green:nothing

So yeah, there are plenty of playables there, but few of the removal spells actually give you mana advantage or card advantage, and of the decent ones, only two are instants! (Righteous Blow and Death Wind)

i think you're really selling Mist Raven and Crippling Chill short, those seem like great cards. Chill stalls a creature for 2 turns, not 1, since you use it on your opponent's turn before they can attack with it, and it's a freeroll card-wise which is always more powerful than it looks/feels. it played very strong for me at the prerelease.

also, Ghoulflesh and Guise of Fire are perfectly maindeckable. -1/-1 removal has been playable in formats with far more removal options than this one

the lack of instant removal is obviously intentional to make sure that the soulbond guys are good and aren't just constantly setting you up to get blown out

agreed, but that 2/4 lifelink angel is a very close second. Raven just has more synergy w/ everything.

Crippling Chill okay, the problem is it doesn't really help much vs. Soulbound (since there are usually two scary creatures out) nor Humans (as they will often have a bunch of critters). Feeling of Dread would be way better. But it does seem very good vs. Angels and the Black "loner" architype. And Peel is one of the best commons in the set, I know that - didn't mean to sell that one short, it's obviously great in this format. But I'm not convinced on the -1 toughness effects - Guise of Fire I like a little better since you can get a few other minor uses out of it, these cards *are* maindeckable but IMO they'd get cut fast if I had too many playables.

Basically it seems like the lack of instant removal is making the Soulbounders a little too good, especially the green +X/+X guys. I don't think this is a problem, just keep in mind that A) Druid's Familiar is really a windmill slam first pick, and B) instant removal is at a premium, and hell I think Peel from Reality may even be first pickable.